Quotes from GOP leaders cross party lines

Former Republican Senator Bob Dole was recently asked whether the Republican Party would welcome him today. Dole said, "I doubt it. Reagan wouldn't have made it, certainly Nixon wouldn't have made it, because he had ideas."

I like ideas, so I went looking, and here's what former Republican presidents have said, which would be considered blasphemous by today's pundits and the extremists within the GOP:

? Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities."

? Richard Nixon: "Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation."

? Ronald Reagan: "Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense."

? George H.W. Bush "America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of the world. My friends, we have work to do."

When I first read these quotes, I was awed.

These visionary and principled yet pragmatic and frugal positions represent the character and passion that can redefined the Republican Party.

But, to get there, they need to listen to those truth-tellers within the GOP, who are pointing to where and why the party went off the rails.

For the move forward has to begin by taking stock of the wreckage of the past. In 12-steps lingo, this means: a searching and fearless moral inventory of themselves, or admitting the exact nature of their wrongs.

Thus I give you Bruce Bartlett, who was domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan, and Treasury official under George H.W. Bush. In his article titled "The GOP's Misplaced Rage," he wrote: "I think conservative anger is misplaced. To a large extent, Obama is only cleaning up messes created by Bush. ? . Conservative protesters should remember that the recession, which led to so many of the policies they oppose, is almost entirely the result of Bush's policies. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession began in December 2007 - long before Obama was even nominated. And the previous recession ended in November 2001, so the current recession cannot be blamed on cyclical forces that Bush inherited."

Since writing this, Bartlett has been banned from Fox News.

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Quotes from GOP leaders cross party lines

Former Republican Senator Bob Dole was recently asked whether the Republican Party would welcome him today. Dole said, 'I doubt it. Reagan wouldn't have made it, certainly Nixon wouldn't have made it,

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